Lyrical Abstraction is either of two related but distinctly separate
trendsAn art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a restricted period of time, or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined within a number of years...
in
Post-warA post-war period or postwar period is the interval immediately following the ending of a war and enduring as long as war does not resume. A post-war period can become an interwar period or interbellum when a war between the same parties resumes at a later date...
Modernist painting, and a third definition is the usage as a descriptive term. It is a descriptive term characterizing a type of abstract painting related to Abstract Expressionism; in use since the 1940s. Many well known abstract expressionist painters like Arshile Gorky seen in context have been characterized as doing a type of painting described as lyrical abstraction.
The second common use refers to the tendency attributed to paintings in Europe during the post-1945 period and as a way of describing several artists (mostly in France) whose works related to characteristics of American abstract expressionism. At the time (late 1940s) Paul Jenkins,
Norman BluhmNorman Bluhm , was an American painter classified as an abstract expressionist, and as an action painter.- Biography :...
,
Sam FrancisSamuel Lewis Francis was an American painter and printmaker.-Early life:...
,
Jules OlitskiJules Olitski was an American abstract painter, printmaker, and sculptor.-Early life:Olitski was born Jevel Demikovski in Snovsk, in the Russian SFSR , a few months after his father, a commissar, was executed by the Russian government...
,
Joan MitchellJoan Mitchell was a "second generation" abstract expressionist painter. She was an essential member of the American Abstract expressionist movement, even though much of her career took place in France. Along with Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, and Helen Frankenthaler she was one of her era's few...
,
Ellsworth KellyEllsworth Kelly is an American painter and sculptor associated with Hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the Minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity of form found similar to the work of John McLaughlin. Kelly often employs bright colors to...
and numerous other American artists were living and working in Paris and other European cities. With the exception of Kelly all of those artists developed their versions of painterly abstraction that has been characterized at times as lyrical abstraction,
tachismeTachisme is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often considered to be the European equivalent to abstract expressionism...
,
color fieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
, and
abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
.
Finally in the late 1960s (partially as a response to minimal art, and the dogmatic interpretations by some to
GreenbergianClement Greenberg was an American essayist known mainly as an influential visual art critic closely associated with American Modern art of the mid-20th century...
and
JuddianDonald Clarence Judd was an American artist associated with minimalism . In his work, Judd sought autonomy and clarity for the constructed object and the space created by it, ultimately achieving a rigorously democratic presentation without compositional hierarchy...
formalismIn art theory, formalism is the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form--the way it is made, its purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content...
) many painters re-introduced painterly options into their works and the Whitney Museum and several other museums and institutions at the time formally named and identified the movement and uncompromising return to painterly abstraction as lyrical abstraction.
European Abstraction Lyrique (
TachismeTachisme is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often considered to be the European equivalent to abstract expressionism...
) born in
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
in 1945, and the French critics Pierre Guéguen and Charles Estienne the author of
L'Art à Paris 1945–1966 are credited with coining its name in 1946, and
American Lyrical Abstraction a movement described by Larry Aldrich (the founder of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield Connecticut) in 1969
European Lyrical Abstraction is an
art movementAn art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a restricted period of time, or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined within a number of years...
born in
ParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
after
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
At that time,
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
was trying to reconstruct its identity devastated by the
OccupationMilitary occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory passes to a hostile army. The territory then becomes occupied territory.-Military occupation and the laws of war:...
and
CollaborationCollaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing...
. Some art critics looked at the new abstraction as an attempt to try to restore the image of artistic Paris, which had held the rank of capital of the arts until the war. It is possible that lyrical abstraction also represented a competition between Paris and the new American school of painting,
Abstract ExpressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
, based in
New YorkNew York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
and represented by
Jackson PollockPaul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
,
Willem de KooningWillem de Kooning was a Dutch American abstract expressionist artist who was born in Rotterdam, the Netherlands....
and many others. It could thus be seen as the
School of ParisSchool of Paris refers to two distinct groups of artists — a group of medieval manuscript illuminators, and a group of non-French artists working in Paris before World War I...
versus the
New York SchoolThe New York School was an informal group of American poets, painters, dancers, and musicians active in the 1950s, 1960s in New York City...
.
Lyrical abstraction was opposed not only to Cubist and Surrealist movements that preceded it, but also to geometric abstraction (or "cold abstraction"). Lyrical abstraction was in some ways the first to apply the lessons of Kandinsky, considered one of the fathers of abstraction. For the artists in France, lyrical abstraction represented an opening to personal expression.
European Abstraction Lyrique
Post World War II
FranceThe French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
was trying to reconstruct her identity devastated by the
OccupationMilitary occupation occurs when the control and authority over a territory passes to a hostile army. The territory then becomes occupied territory.-Military occupation and the laws of war:...
and
CollaborationCollaboration is working together to achieve a goal. It is a recursive process where two or more people or organizations work together to realize shared goals, — for example, an intriguing endeavor that is creative in nature—by sharing...
. Some art critics have looked at the new abstraction as an attempt to try to restore the image of artistic Paris, who had held the rank of capital of the arts until the war.
Just after
World War IIWorld War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, many artists old and young were back in Paris where they worked and exhibited :
Nicolas de StaëlNicolas de Staël was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting...
,
Serge PoliakoffSerge Poliakoff was a Russian-born French modernist painter belonging to the 'New' Ecole de Paris .- Biography :...
,
André LanskoyAndré Lanskoy was a Russian painter and printmaker who worked in France. He is associated with the School of Paris and Tachisme, an abstract painting movement that began during the 1940s.-Biography:...
and Zaks from Russia;
Hans HartungHans Hartung was a German-French painter, known for his gestural abstract style. He was also a decorated World War II veteran of the French Foreign Legion.-Life:...
and
WolsWols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze , a German painter and photographer predominantly active in France....
from Germany;
Árpád SzenesÁrpád Szenes was a Hungarian-Jewish abstract painter who worked in France.He and Portuguese-French painter Maria Helena Vieira da Silva married in 1930 and became French citizens in the 1950s...
and
Simon HantaïSimon Hantaï is a painter generally associated with abstract art.-Biography:...
from Hungary;
Alexandre IstratiAlexandre Istrati was a Franco-Romanian painter. He won numerous prizes, including 1953 the Prix Kandinsky.He married fellow Romanian abstract expressionist painter, Natalia Dumitresco.-External links:...
from Romania;
Jean-Paul RiopelleJean-Paul Riopelle, was a painter and sculptor from Quebec, Canada.-Biography:Born in Montreal, he studied under Paul-Émile Borduas in the 1940s and was a member of Les Automatistes movement. He was one of the signers of the Refus global manifesto...
from Canada; Vieira da Silva from Portugal;
Gérard Ernest SchneiderGérard Ernest Schneider was a Swiss painter.-References:*This article was initially translated from the German Wikipedia....
from Switzerland; Feito from Spain;
Bram van VeldeBram van Velde was a Dutch painter known for an intensely colored and geometric semi-representational painting style related to Tachisme, and Lyrical Abstraction...
from Holland;
Albert BitranAlbert Bitran is a French painter, engraver and sculptor born in 1931 in Istanbul, Turkey.-Bibliography:Albert Bitran was born in Istanbul in 1931.He studies at the Collège Saint Michel, where he obtains the Turkish and French bachelor degrees....
from Turkey;
Zao Wou Ki-Biography:He was born in a cultivated family and studied calligraphy in his childhood and from 1935 to 1941 painting at the school of Fine Arts in Hangzhou. In 1948, he went with his wife Lan-lan, a composer, to Paris to live on the same block in Montparnasse where the classes of Émile Othon...
from China; Sugai from Japan;
Sam FrancisSamuel Lewis Francis was an American painter and printmaker.-Early life:...
, John Koenig, Jack Youngerman and Paul Jenkins from the U.S.A.
All these artists and many others were at that time among the “Lyrical Abstractionists” with the French :
Georges MathieuGeorges Mathieu is a French painter in the style of lyrical abstraction.-Biography:He was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, and gained an international reputation in the 1950s as a leading Abstract Expressionist. His large paintings are created very rapidly and impulsively...
,
Pierre SoulagesPierre Soulages is a French painter, engraver, and sculptor.-Biography:Born in Rodez in 1919, Soulages also is known as "the painter of black" because of his interest in the colour, "...both a colour and a non-colour. When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up...
, Nallard,
Jean René BazaineJean René Bazaine was a French painter, designer of stained glass windows, and writer. He was the great great grandson of the English Court portraitist Sir George Hayter.-Studies:...
, Doucet, Camille Bryen,
Jean Le MoalJean Le Moal was a French painter of the new Paris school, designer of stained glass windows, and one of the founder members of the Salon de Mai.-Biography:...
,
Gustave SingierGustave Singier was a Belgian non-figurative painter active in France as part of the new Paris School of Lyrical Abstraction and the Salon de Mai. He is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery....
,
Alfred ManessierAlfred Manessier was a non-figurative French painter, stained glass artist, and tapestry designer, part of the new Paris School and the Salon de Mai.-Biography:...
,
Roger BissièreRoger Bissière was a French artist who painted in the abstract Tachisme style. He was born in Villeréal, Lot-et-Garonne, and died in Boissièrettes...
,
Pierre Tal-CoatPierre Tal-Coat was a French artist considered to be one of the founders of Tachisme.-Life and work:...
etc.
Lyrical Abstraction was opposed not only to “l’Ecole de Paris “ remains of pre-war style but to Cubist and Surrealist movements that had preceded it, and
also to geometric abstraction (or "Cold Abstraction"). Lyrical Abstraction was in some ways the first to apply the lessons of Kandinsky, considered one of the fathers of abstraction. For the artists in France, Lyrical Abstraction represented an opening to personal expression. In
BelgiumBelgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
,
Louis Van LintLouis Van Lint was a Belgian painter, major figure of the Belgian post-war abstraction.- Biography :Louis Van Lint studied painting at the Academy of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode under Henry Ottevaere and Jacques Maes until 1939...
figured a remarkable example of an artist who, after a short period of geometric abstraction, has moved to a lyrical abstraction in which he excelled.
Many exhibitions were held in Paris for example in the galleries Arnaud, Drouin,
Jeanne Bucher, Louis Carré, Galerie de France, and every year at the “Salon des Réalités Nouvelles” and “Salon de Mai” where the paintings of all these artists could be seen. At the Drouin gallery one could see Jean Le Moal,
Gustave SingierGustave Singier was a Belgian non-figurative painter active in France as part of the new Paris School of Lyrical Abstraction and the Salon de Mai. He is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery....
,
Alfred ManessierAlfred Manessier was a non-figurative French painter, stained glass artist, and tapestry designer, part of the new Paris School and the Salon de Mai.-Biography:...
, Roger Bissière,
WolsWols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze , a German painter and photographer predominantly active in France....
and others. A wind blew over the capital when
Georges MathieuGeorges Mathieu is a French painter in the style of lyrical abstraction.-Biography:He was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, and gained an international reputation in the 1950s as a leading Abstract Expressionist. His large paintings are created very rapidly and impulsively...
decided to hold two exhibitions:
L'Imaginaire in 1947 at the Palais du Luxembourg which he would have prefer to call
Abstraction Lyrique to impose the name and then
HWPSMTB with (
Hans HartungHans Hartung was a German-French painter, known for his gestural abstract style. He was also a decorated World War II veteran of the French Foreign Legion.-Life:...
,
WolsWols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze , a German painter and photographer predominantly active in France....
,
Francis PicabiaFrancis Picabia was a French painter, poet, and typographist, associated with both the Dada and Surrealist art movements.- Early life :...
, François Stahly sculptor, Georges Mathieu,
Michel TapiéMichel Tapié was an internationally active French critic, curator, and collector of art. He was an early and influential theorist and practitioner of "tachisme", which is generally regarded as the European equivalent of abstract expressionism...
and Camille Bryen) in 1948.
In March 1951 was held the larger exhibition
Véhémences confrontées in the gallery Nina Dausset where for the first time were presented side to side French and American abstract artists. It was organised by the critic
Michel TapiéMichel Tapié was an internationally active French critic, curator, and collector of art. He was an early and influential theorist and practitioner of "tachisme", which is generally regarded as the European equivalent of abstract expressionism...
, whose role in the defense of this movement was of the highest importance. With these events, he déclared that « the lyrical abstraction is born ».
It was, however, a fairly short reign (late 1957), which was quickly supplanted by the
New realismNouveau réalisme refers to an artistic movement founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany and the painter Yves Klein during the first collective exposition in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan...
of
Pierre RestanyPierre Restany , was an internationally known French art critic and cultural philosopher.Restany was born in Amélie-les-Bains-Palalda, Pyrénées-Orientales, and spent his childhood in Casablanca. On returning to France in 1949 he attended the Lycée Henri-IV before studying at universities in France,...
and
Yves KleinYves Klein was a French artist considered an important figure in post-war European art. He is the leading member of the French artistic movement of Nouveau réalisme founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany...
.
Starting around 1970, this movement has been revived by a new generation of artists born during or immediately after the Second World War. Some of its key promoters include Paul Kallos, Georges Romathier, Michelle Desterac, and
Thibaut de ReimpréThibaut de Reimpré is a contemporary French painter. Born in Paris in 1949, he attended the 'Beaux-Arts' in Paris and worked, in particular, in the 'Atelier Yankel' from 1968 to 1971. He currently works either in Paris or in the Sarthe region, mostly with acrylic paint , his style is abstract...
.
An exhibition entitled "The Lyrical Flight, Paris 1945–1956" (
L'Envolée Lyrique, Paris 1945–1956), bringing together the works of 60 painters, was presented in Paris at the Musée du Luxembourg from April to August 2006 and included the most prominent painters of the movement :
Georges MathieuGeorges Mathieu is a French painter in the style of lyrical abstraction.-Biography:He was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, and gained an international reputation in the 1950s as a leading Abstract Expressionist. His large paintings are created very rapidly and impulsively...
,
Pierre SoulagesPierre Soulages is a French painter, engraver, and sculptor.-Biography:Born in Rodez in 1919, Soulages also is known as "the painter of black" because of his interest in the colour, "...both a colour and a non-colour. When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up...
, Gérard Schneider,
Zao Wou Ki-Biography:He was born in a cultivated family and studied calligraphy in his childhood and from 1935 to 1941 painting at the school of Fine Arts in Hangzhou. In 1948, he went with his wife Lan-lan, a composer, to Paris to live on the same block in Montparnasse where the classes of Émile Othon...
,
Albert BitranAlbert Bitran is a French painter, engraver and sculptor born in 1931 in Istanbul, Turkey.-Bibliography:Albert Bitran was born in Istanbul in 1931.He studies at the Collège Saint Michel, where he obtains the Turkish and French bachelor degrees....
,
Serge PoliakoffSerge Poliakoff was a Russian-born French modernist painter belonging to the 'New' Ecole de Paris .- Biography :...
.
French artists (1945 – 1956)
- Jean René Bazaine
Jean René Bazaine was a French painter, designer of stained glass windows, and writer. He was the great great grandson of the English Court portraitist Sir George Hayter.-Studies:...
(1904–2001)
- Roger Bissière (1888–1964)
- Camille Bryen (1902–1977)
- Olivier Debre (1920–1999)
- Jean Fautrier
Jean Fautrier was a French painter and sculptor. He was one of the most important practitioners of Tachisme.He was born in Paris. Given his unwed mother's surname, he was raised by his grandmother until her death in 1908, when he went to live with his mother in London.In 1912 he studied at the...
(1898–1964)
- Pierre Fichet (1927– )
- Oscar Gauthier (1921– )
- Hans Hartung
Hans Hartung was a German-French painter, known for his gestural abstract style. He was also a decorated World War II veteran of the French Foreign Legion.-Life:...
(1904–1989)
- Alfred Manessier
Alfred Manessier was a non-figurative French painter, stained glass artist, and tapestry designer, part of the new Paris School and the Salon de Mai.-Biography:...
(1911–1993)
- Georges Mathieu
Georges Mathieu is a French painter in the style of lyrical abstraction.-Biography:He was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, and gained an international reputation in the 1950s as a leading Abstract Expressionist. His large paintings are created very rapidly and impulsively...
(1921– )
- Francis Picabia
Francis Picabia was a French painter, poet, and typographist, associated with both the Dada and Surrealist art movements.- Early life :...
(1879–1953)
- Serge Poliakoff
Serge Poliakoff was a Russian-born French modernist painter belonging to the 'New' Ecole de Paris .- Biography :...
(1906–1969)
- Gustave Singier
Gustave Singier was a Belgian non-figurative painter active in France as part of the new Paris School of Lyrical Abstraction and the Salon de Mai. He is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery....
(1909–1984)
- Nicolas de Stael
Nicolas de Staël was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting...
(1914–1955)
- Michel Tapié
Michel Tapié was an internationally active French critic, curator, and collector of art. He was an early and influential theorist and practitioner of "tachisme", which is generally regarded as the European equivalent of abstract expressionism...
(1909–1987)
- Wols
Wols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze , a German painter and photographer predominantly active in France....
pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze (1913–1951)
- Zao Wou Ki
-Biography:He was born in a cultivated family and studied calligraphy in his childhood and from 1935 to 1941 painting at the school of Fine Arts in Hangzhou. In 1948, he went with his wife Lan-lan, a composer, to Paris to live on the same block in Montparnasse where the classes of Émile Othon...
(1921– )
An exhibition entitled
The soaring lyrical, Paris 1945-1956, bringing together the works of 60 painters, was presented in Paris at the Musée du Luxembourg from April to August 2006.
Artists in Paris (1945–1956) and beyond
- Mino Argento
Mino Argento is an Italian artist, whose works comprise abstract paintings on canvas and paper.-Life and work:Mino Argento was born in Rome, Italy in 1927. He worked in architecture as a young man...
(1927– )
- Jean René Bazaine
Jean René Bazaine was a French painter, designer of stained glass windows, and writer. He was the great great grandson of the English Court portraitist Sir George Hayter.-Studies:...
(1904–2001)
- Roger Bissière (1888–1964)
- Albert Bitran
Albert Bitran is a French painter, engraver and sculptor born in 1931 in Istanbul, Turkey.-Bibliography:Albert Bitran was born in Istanbul in 1931.He studies at the Collège Saint Michel, where he obtains the Turkish and French bachelor degrees....
(1931– )
- Norman Bluhm
Norman Bluhm , was an American painter classified as an abstract expressionist, and as an action painter.- Biography :...
(1921–1999)
- Camille Bryen (1902–1977)
- Olivier Debre (1920–1999)
- Jean Dubuffet
Jean Philippe Arthur Dubuffet was a French painter and sculptor. His idealistic approach to aesthetics embraced so called "low art" and eschewed traditional standards of beauty in favor of what he believed to be a more authentic and humanistic approach to image-making.-Life and work:Dubuffet was...
(1901–1985)
- Bracha Ettinger (1948– )
- Jean Fautrier
Jean Fautrier was a French painter and sculptor. He was one of the most important practitioners of Tachisme.He was born in Paris. Given his unwed mother's surname, he was raised by his grandmother until her death in 1908, when he went to live with his mother in London.In 1912 he studied at the...
(1898–1964)
- Pierre Fichet (1927– )
- Sam Francis
Samuel Lewis Francis was an American painter and printmaker.-Early life:...
(1923–1994)
- Oscar Gauthier (1921– )
- Annick Gendron
Annick Gendron is a French abstract painter, .- Art :In the 1970s Gendron’s innovative way of using and manipulating industrial material and tools as plastic, glass, hydraulics press and centrifuges...
(1939– )
- Marc-Antoine Goulard
-Biography:Marc-Antoine Goulard is a French American artist, born in 1964 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, who defends abstract lyric painting. He began his career as a classical musician then as a painter. He lives between Paris, London et New-York.-Musician:...
(1964– )
- Hans Hartung
Hans Hartung was a German-French painter, known for his gestural abstract style. He was also a decorated World War II veteran of the French Foreign Legion.-Life:...
(1904–1989)
- Simon Hantaï
Simon Hantaï is a painter generally associated with abstract art.-Biography:...
(1922–2008)
- Alexandre Istrati
Alexandre Istrati was a Franco-Romanian painter. He won numerous prizes, including 1953 the Prix Kandinsky.He married fellow Romanian abstract expressionist painter, Natalia Dumitresco.-External links:...
(1915–1991)
- Paul Jenkins (1923– )
- Antoni Karwowski
Antoni Karwowski – born on 14.04.1948 in Grajewo, Poland. Polish lyrical abstraction and neofiguration painter and .-Early life & family:He was raised in small town in Eastern Poland, surrounded by one of the largest Nature Parks in Europe Biebrza National Park. His father, Jozef Karwowski, was...
(1948– )
- John Franklin Koenig (1924–2008)
- André Lanskoy
André Lanskoy was a Russian painter and printmaker who worked in France. He is associated with the School of Paris and Tachisme, an abstract painting movement that began during the 1940s.-Biography:...
(1902–1976)
- Alfred Manessier
Alfred Manessier was a non-figurative French painter, stained glass artist, and tapestry designer, part of the new Paris School and the Salon de Mai.-Biography:...
(1911–1993)
- Georges Mathieu
Georges Mathieu is a French painter in the style of lyrical abstraction.-Biography:He was born in Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, and gained an international reputation in the 1950s as a leading Abstract Expressionist. His large paintings are created very rapidly and impulsively...
(1921– )
- Joan Miró
Joan Miró i Ferrà was a Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramicist born in Barcelona.Earning international acclaim, his work has been interpreted as Surrealism, a sandbox for the subconscious mind, a re-creation of the childlike, and a manifestation of Catalan pride...
(1893–1983),
- Mubin Orhon (1924–1981)
- Francis Picabia
Francis Picabia was a French painter, poet, and typographist, associated with both the Dada and Surrealist art movements.- Early life :...
(1879–1953)
- Serge Poliakoff
Serge Poliakoff was a Russian-born French modernist painter belonging to the 'New' Ecole de Paris .- Biography :...
(1906–1969)
- Jean-Paul Riopelle
Jean-Paul Riopelle, was a painter and sculptor from Quebec, Canada.-Biography:Born in Montreal, he studied under Paul-Émile Borduas in the 1940s and was a member of Les Automatistes movement. He was one of the signers of the Refus global manifesto...
(1923–2002)
- Emilio Scanavino
Emilio Scanavino was an Italian painter and sculptor.-Early life:In 1938 the young Scanavino enrolled to the Art School Nicolò Barabino of Genoa where he met his teacher Mario Calonghi, who had a great influence on Scanavino’s first formation. In 1942 he had his first exhibition at the Salone...
, (1922–1986)
- Vieira da Silva (1908–1992)
- Gustave Singier
Gustave Singier was a Belgian non-figurative painter active in France as part of the new Paris School of Lyrical Abstraction and the Salon de Mai. He is buried in the Montparnasse Cemetery....
(1909–1984)
- Pierre Soulages
Pierre Soulages is a French painter, engraver, and sculptor.-Biography:Born in Rodez in 1919, Soulages also is known as "the painter of black" because of his interest in the colour, "...both a colour and a non-colour. When light is reflected on black, it transforms and transmutes it. It opens up...
(1919– )
- Nicolas de Staël
Nicolas de Staël was a painter known for his use of a thick impasto and his highly abstract landscape painting...
(1914–1955)
- Árpád Szenes
Árpád Szenes was a Hungarian-Jewish abstract painter who worked in France.He and Portuguese-French painter Maria Helena Vieira da Silva married in 1930 and became French citizens in the 1950s...
(1897–1985)
- Gérard Ernest Schneider
Gérard Ernest Schneider was a Swiss painter.-References:*This article was initially translated from the German Wikipedia....
(1896–1986)
- Michel Tapié
Michel Tapié was an internationally active French critic, curator, and collector of art. He was an early and influential theorist and practitioner of "tachisme", which is generally regarded as the European equivalent of abstract expressionism...
(1909–1987)
- Bram van Velde
Bram van Velde was a Dutch painter known for an intensely colored and geometric semi-representational painting style related to Tachisme, and Lyrical Abstraction...
(1895–1981)
- François Willi Wendt (1909–1970)
- Wols
Wols was the pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze , a German painter and photographer predominantly active in France....
pseudonym of Alfred Otto Wolfgang Schulze (1913–1951)
- Zao Wou Ki
-Biography:He was born in a cultivated family and studied calligraphy in his childhood and from 1935 to 1941 painting at the school of Fine Arts in Hangzhou. In 1948, he went with his wife Lan-lan, a composer, to Paris to live on the same block in Montparnasse where the classes of Émile Othon...
(1921– )
- Zaks
America
American Lyrical Abstraction is an
art movementAn art movement is a tendency or style in art with a specific common philosophy or goal, followed by a group of artists during a restricted period of time, or, at least, with the heyday of the movement defined within a number of years...
that emerged in
New York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
,
Los AngelesLos Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, Washington, DC, and then
TorontoToronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
and
LondonLondon is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
during the 1960s–1970s. Characterized by intuitive and loose paint handling, spontaneous expression, illusionist space, acrylic staining, process, occasional imagery, and other painterly and newer technological techniques. Lyrical Abstraction led the way away from
minimalismMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
in painting and toward a new freer
expressionismExpressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting, originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas...
. Painters who directly reacted against the predominating
FormalistIn art theory, formalism is the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form--the way it is made, its purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content...
, Minimalist, and
Pop ArtPop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
and geometric abstraction styles of the 1960s, turned to new, experimental, loose, painterly, expressive, pictorial and abstract painting styles. Many of them had been Minimalists, working with various monochromatic, geometric styles, and whose paintings publicly evolved into new abstract painterly motifs. American Lyrical Abstraction is related in spirit to
Abstract ExpressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
, Color Field painting and
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an
TachismeTachisme is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often considered to be the European equivalent to abstract expressionism...
of the 1940s and 1950s as well.
TachismeTachisme is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often considered to be the European equivalent to abstract expressionism...
refers to the French style of abstract painting current in the 1945–1960 period. Very close to Art Informel, it presents the European equivalent to
Abstract ExpressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
.
The Sheldon Museum of Art held an exhibition from 1 June until 29 August, 1993 entitled
Lyrical Abstraction: Color and Mood. Some of the participants included
Dan ChristensenDan Christensen, the American abstract painter, was born in Cozad, Nebraska on October 6, 1942, he died in Easthampton, New York on January 20, 2007....
,
Walter Darby BannardWalter Darby Bannard , also known as Darby Bannard, is an American abstract painter.Bannard attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Princeton University, where he struck up a friendship and working relationship with Frank Stella, which continued after graduation and eventuated in the extreme...
,
Ronald DavisRonald Davis , born 1937, is an American painter whose work is associated with Geometric abstraction, Abstract Illusionism, Lyrical Abstraction, Hard-edge painting, Shaped canvas painting, Color field painting, and 3D Computer Graphics...
,
Helen FrankenthalerHelen Frankenthaler is an American abstract expressionist painter. She is a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work in six decades she has spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work...
,
Sam FrancisSamuel Lewis Francis was an American painter and printmaker.-Early life:...
,
Cleve GrayCleve Gray was known as an Abstract expressionist painter, who was also associated with Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction.-Biography:...
,
Ronnie LandfieldRonnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...
, Morris Louis,
Jules OlitskiJules Olitski was an American abstract painter, printmaker, and sculptor.-Early life:Olitski was born Jevel Demikovski in Snovsk, in the Russian SFSR , a few months after his father, a commissar, was executed by the Russian government...
,
Robert NatkinRobert Natkin was an American born abstract painter whose work is associated with Abstract expressionism, Color field painting, and Lyrical Abstraction....
, William Pettet,
Mark RothkoMark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
, Lawrence Stafford,
Peter YoungPeter Young, is an American painter who was born in Pittsburgh, Pa, January 2, 1940. He is primarily known for his abstract paintings that have been widely exhibited in the United States and in Europe since the 1960s. His work is associated with Minimal Art, Post-minimalism, and Lyrical Abstraction...
and several other painters. At the time the museum issued a statement the read in part:
As a movement, Lyrical Abstraction extended the post-war Modernist aesthetic and provided a new dimension within the abstract tradition which was clearly indebted to
Jackson PollockPaul Jackson Pollock , known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety. He was regarded as a mostly reclusive artist. He had a volatile personality, and...
's "dripped painting" and
Mark RothkoMark Rothko, born Marcus Rothkowitz , was a Russian-born American painter. He is classified as an abstract expressionist, although he himself rejected this label, and even resisted classification as an "abstract painter".- Childhood :Mark Rothko was born in Dvinsk, Vitebsk Province, Russian...
's stained, color forms. This movement was born out of a desire to create a direct physical and sensory experience of painting through their monumentality and emphasis on color – forcing the viewer to "read" paintings literally as things.
During 2009 the
Boca Raton Museum of ArtThe Boca Raton Museum of Art is located at 501 Plaza Real, Boca Raton, Florida in Mizner Park. It houses works of art by a number of the great masters.-About:...
in Florida hosted an exhibition entitled
Expanding Boundaries: Lyrical Abstraction Selections from the Permanent Collection
At the time the museum issued a statement that said in part:
Lyrical Abstraction arose in the 1960s and 70s, following the challenge of Minimalism and Conceptual art. Many artists began moving away from geometric, hard-edge, and minimal styles, toward more lyrical, sensuous, romantic abstractions worked in a loose gestural style. These "lyrical abstractionists" sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting, and to revive and reinvigorate a painterly "tradition" in American art. At the same time, these artists sought to reinstate the primacy of line and color as formal elements in works composed according to aesthetic principles – rather than as the visual representation of sociopolitical realities or philosophical theories.
Characterized by intuitive and loose paint handling, spontaneous expression, illusionist space, acrylic staining, process, occasional imagery, and other painterly techniques, the abstract works included in this exhibition sing with rich fluid color and quiet energy. Works by the following artists associated with Lyrical Abstraction will be included:
Natvar BhavsarNatvar Bhavsar is an Indian artist, based in Soho, New York City, noted as an abstract expressionist and color field artist. Bhavsar's paintings appear in more than 800 private and public collections, including the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New...
,
Stanley BoxerStanley Boxer was an American artist best known for thickly painted abstract works of art. He was also an accomplished sculptor and printmaker....
, Lamar Briggs,
Dan ChristensenDan Christensen, the American abstract painter, was born in Cozad, Nebraska on October 6, 1942, he died in Easthampton, New York on January 20, 2007....
, David Diao,
Friedel DzubasFriedel Dzubas was a German-born American abstract painter.-Life and work:Friedel Dzubas studied art in his native land before fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939 and settling in New York City. In Manhattan during the early 1950s, he shared a studio with fellow abstract painter Helen Frankenthaler...
,
Sam FrancisSamuel Lewis Francis was an American painter and printmaker.-Early life:...
, Dorothy Gillespie,
Cleve GrayCleve Gray was known as an Abstract expressionist painter, who was also associated with Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction.-Biography:...
, Paul Jenkins,
Ronnie LandfieldRonnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...
,
Pat LipskyPat Lipsky is an American painter associated with Lyrical Abstraction, Color Field Painting, and Geometric abstraction.-Education:Lipsky grew up in New York City...
,
Joan MitchellJoan Mitchell was a "second generation" abstract expressionist painter. She was an essential member of the American Abstract expressionist movement, even though much of her career took place in France. Along with Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, and Helen Frankenthaler she was one of her era's few...
,
Robert NatkinRobert Natkin was an American born abstract painter whose work is associated with Abstract expressionism, Color field painting, and Lyrical Abstraction....
,
Jules OlitskiJules Olitski was an American abstract painter, printmaker, and sculptor.-Early life:Olitski was born Jevel Demikovski in Snovsk, in the Russian SFSR , a few months after his father, a commissar, was executed by the Russian government...
,
Larry PoonsLawrence Poons , better known as Larry Poons, is an abstract painter who was born in Tokyo, Japan. He studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician...
, Garry Rich,
John SeeryJohn Seery is an American artist who is associated with the lyrical abstraction movement. He was born in Maspeth, New York, was raised in Flushing, Queens and as a teen, moved to Cincinnati, Ohio.- Biography :...
, Jeff Way and
Larry ZoxLawrence "Larry" Zox was an American painter and printmaker who is classified as an Abstract expressionist, Color Field painter and a Lyrical Abstractionist, although he did not readily use those categories for his work....
.
History of the term in America
Lyrical Abstraction, an exhibition in the
Whitney Museum of American ArtThe Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, May 25–July 6 1971 was described by John I. H. Baur, curator of the
Whitney Museum of American ArtThe Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
:
- ”To be given an entire exhibition surveying a current trend in American art at a single blow is an experience unusual to the verge of the bizarre…Mr. Aldrich defines the trend of Lyrical Abstraction and explains how he came to acquire the works…”
Lyrical Abstraction was the title of a circulating exhibition which commenced at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum,
Ridgefield-Places:United States*Ridgefield, Connecticut**Ridgefield Playhouse, a theater located in Ridgefield*Ridgefield, New Jersey*Ridgefield Park, New Jersey*Ridgefield Township, New Jersey*Ridgefield, Washington*Ridgefield Township, Huron County, Ohio...
,
ConnecticutConnecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...
from April 5 through June 7, 1970, and ended at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, May 25 through July 6, 1971. Lyrical Abstraction is a term that was used by Larry Aldrich (the founder of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield Connecticut) in 1969 to describe what Aldrich said he saw in the studios of many artists at that time. Mr. Aldrich, a successful designer and art collector, defined the trend of Lyrical Abstraction and explained how he came to acquire the works. In his "Statement of the Exhibition" he wrote,
"Early last season, it became apparent that in painting there was a movement away from the geometric, hard-edge, and minimal, toward more lyrical, sensuous, romantic abstractions in colors which were softer and more vibrant…The artist’s touch is always visible in this type of painting, even when the paintings are done with spray guns, sponges or other objects...As I researched this lyrical trend, I found many young artists whose paintings appealed to me so much that I was impelled to acquire many of them. The majority of the paintings in the Lyrical Abstraction exhibition were created in 1969 and all are a part of my collection now."
Larry Aldrich donated the paintings from the exhibition to the Whitney Museum of American Art.
For many years the term Lyrical Abstraction was a pejorative, which unfortunately adversely affected those artists whose works were associated with that name. In 1989
Union CollegeUnion College is a private, non-denominational liberal arts college located in Schenectady, New York, United States. Founded in 1795, it was the first institution of higher learning chartered by the New York State Board of Regents. In the 19th century, it became the "Mother of Fraternities", as...
art history professor, the late Daniel Robbins observed that Lyrical Abstraction was the term used in the late sixties to describe the return to painterly expressivity by painters all over the country and "consequently", Robbins said, "the term should be used today because it has historical credibility"
Exhibition participants
The following artists participated in the exhibition,
Lyrical Abstraction.
- Helene Aylon
Helène Aylon is an American multimedia ecofeminist artist. Her work can be divided into three phases: Process art in the '70s; anti-nuclear art in the '80s; and The G-d Project, a feminist commentary on the Hebrew Bible and other established traditions, in the '90s and 2000s.Aylon was raised in...
(1931 – )
- Victoria Barr (1937– )
- James Beres (1942 – )
- Jake Berthot (1939– )
- Dan Christensen
Dan Christensen, the American abstract painter, was born in Cozad, Nebraska on October 6, 1942, he died in Easthampton, New York on January 20, 2007....
(1942–2007)
- David William Cummings (1937– )
- Carl Gliko (1941–)
- John Adams Griefen (1942 – )
- Carol Haerer (1933–2002)
- Gary Hudson
Gary Hudson has been involved in private spaceflight development for over 25 years.Hudson is best known as the founder of Rotary Rocket Company, which in spending ~$30 Million attempted to build a unique single stage to orbit launch vehicle known as the Roton...
(1936 – )
- Don Kaufman (1935 – )
- Jane A. Kaufman (1938 – )
- Victor Kord (1935 – )
- Ronnie Landfield
Ronnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...
(1947 – )
- Pat Lipsky
Pat Lipsky is an American painter associated with Lyrical Abstraction, Color Field Painting, and Geometric abstraction.-Education:Lipsky grew up in New York City...
(1941 – )
- Ralph Sessions Moseley (1941 – )
- David Paul (1945 – ) only in 1970
- Herbert Perr,(1941 – )
- William Pettet (1942 – )
- Murray Reich (1932 – )
- Garry Lorence Rich (1943 – )
- Ken L. Showell (1939–1997)
- John Seery
John Seery is an American artist who is associated with the lyrical abstraction movement. He was born in Maspeth, New York, was raised in Flushing, Queens and as a teen, moved to Cincinnati, Ohio.- Biography :...
(1941– )
- Alan Siegel (1938 – )
- Lawrence Stafford (1938 – )
- William Staples (1934 – )
- James Sullivan (artist) (1939 – )
- Herbert Schiffrin (1944 – )
- Shirlann Smith (1931 – )
- John Francis Torreano (1941 – )
- Jeff Way (1942 – )
- Thornton Willis (1938 – )
- Philip Wofford (1935 – )
- Robert Zakanych (1935 – )
Relation to other tendencies
Lyrical Abstraction along with the
FluxusFluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
movement and
PostminimalismPostminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...
(a term first coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in the pages of
ArtforumArtforum is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art.-Publication:The magazine is published ten times a year, September through May, along with an annual summer issue...
in 1969) sought to expand the boundaries of abstract painting and Minimalism by focusing on process, new materials and new ways of expression.
PostminimalismPostminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...
often incorporating industrial materials, raw materials, fabrications, found objects, installation, serial repetition, and often with references to
DadaDada or Dadaism is a cultural movement that began in Zurich, Switzerland, during World War I and peaked from 1916 to 1922. The movement primarily involved visual arts, literature—poetry, art manifestoes, art theory—theatre, and graphic design, and concentrated its anti-war politics through a...
and
SurrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
is best exemplified in the sculptures of
Eva HesseEva Hesse , was a German-born American sculptor, known for her pioneering work in materials such as latex, fiberglass, and plastics. -Early life:Hesse was born into a family of observant Jews in Hamburg, Germany...
. Lyrical Abstraction,
Conceptual ArtConceptual art is art in which the concept or idea involved in the work take precedence over traditional aesthetic and material concerns. Many of the works, sometimes called installations, of the artist Sol LeWitt may be constructed by anyone simply by following a set of written instructions...
,
PostminimalismPostminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...
, Earth Art,
VideoVideo is the technology of electronically capturing, recording, processing, storing, transmitting, and reconstructing a sequence of still images representing scenes in motion.- History :...
,
Performance artIn art, performance art is a performance presented to an audience, traditionally interdisciplinary. Performance may be either scripted or unscripted, random or carefully orchestrated; spontaneous or otherwise carefully planned with or without audience participation. The performance can be live or...
,
Installation artInstallation art describes an artistic genre of three-dimensional works that are often site-specific and designed to transform the perception of a space. Generally, the term is applied to interior spaces, whereas exterior interventions are often called Land art; however, the boundaries between...
, along with the continuation of
FluxusFluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
,
Abstract ExpressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
,
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
PaintingPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
,
Hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
, Minimal Art,
Op artOp art, also known as optical art, is a style of visual art that makes use of optical illusions."Optical art is a method of painting concerning the interaction between illusion and picture plane, between understanding and seeing." Op art works are abstract, with many of the better known pieces made...
,
Pop ArtPop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
,
PhotorealismPhotorealism is the genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this information creating a painting that appears photographic...
and
New RealismNouveau réalisme refers to an artistic movement founded in 1960 by the art critic Pierre Restany and the painter Yves Klein during the first collective exposition in the Apollinaire gallery in Milan...
extended the boundaries of
Contemporary ArtContemporary art can be defined variously as art produced at this present point in time or art produced since World War II. The definition of the word contemporary would support the first view, but museums of contemporary art commonly define their collections as consisting of art produced...
in the mid-1960s through the 1970s. Lyrical Abstraction is a type of freewheeling abstract painting that emerged in the mid-1960s when abstract painters returned to various forms of painterly, pictorial, expressionism with a predominate focus on process, gestalt and repetitive compositional strategies in general. Characterized by an overall gestalt, consistent surface tension, sometimes even the hiding of brushstrokes, and an overt avoidance of relational composition. It developed as did
PostminimalismPostminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...
as an alternative to strict
FormalistIn art theory, formalism is the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form--the way it is made, its purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content...
and Minimalist doctrine.
Lyrical Abstraction shares similarities with
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
PaintingPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
and
Abstract ExpressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
especially in the freewheeling usage of paint – texture and surface, an example is illustrated by the painting by
Ronnie LandfieldRonnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...
entitled
For William Blake. Direct drawing, calligraphic use of line, the effects of brushed, splattered, stained, squeegeed, poured, and splashed paint superficially resemble the effects seen in
Abstract ExpressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
and
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
PaintingPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
. However the styles are markedly different. Setting it apart from
Abstract ExpressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
and
Action PaintingAction painting sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied...
of the 1940s and 1950s is the approach to composition and drama. As seen in
Action PaintingAction painting sometimes called "gestural abstraction", is a style of painting in which paint is spontaneously dribbled, splashed or smeared onto the canvas, rather than being carefully applied...
there is an emphasis on brushstrokes, high compositional drama, dynamic compositional tension. While in Lyrical Abstraction there is a sense of compositional randomness, all over composition, low key and relaxed compositional drama and an emphasis on process, repetition, and an all over sensibility. The differences with
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
PaintingPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
are more subtle today because many of the Color Field painters with the exceptions of Morris Louis,
Ellsworth KellyEllsworth Kelly is an American painter and sculptor associated with Hard-edge painting, Color Field painting and the Minimalist school. His works demonstrate unassuming techniques emphasizing the simplicity of form found similar to the work of John McLaughlin. Kelly often employs bright colors to...
, Paul Feeley, Thomas Downing, and
Gene DavisGene Davis was an American painter known especially for his paintings of vertical stripes of color, and was a member of the group of abstract painters in Washington DC during the 1960s known as the Washington Color School....
evolved into Lyrical Abstractionists. Lyrical Abstraction shares with both
Abstract ExpressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
and
Color FieldColor Field painting is a style of abstract painting that emerged in New York City during the 1940s and 1950s. It was inspired by European modernism and closely related to Abstract Expressionism, while many of its notable early proponents were among the pioneering Abstract Expressionists...
Painting a sense of spontaneous and immediate sensual expression, consequently distinctions between specific artists and their styles become blurred, and seemingly interchangeable as they evolve.
Abstract ExpressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
preceded Color Field painting, Lyrical Abstraction,
FluxusFluxus—a name taken from a Latin word meaning "to flow"—is an international network of artists, composers and designers noted for blending different artistic media and disciplines in the 1960s. They have been active in Neo-Dada noise music and visual art as well as literature, urban planning,...
,
Pop ArtPop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
,
MinimalismMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
,
PostminimalismPostminimalism is an art term coined by Robert Pincus-Witten in 1971 used in various artistic fields for work which is influenced by, or attempts to develop and go beyond, the aesthetic of minimalism...
, and the other movements of the 1960s and 1970s and it influenced the later movements that evolved. The interrelationship of/and between distinct but related styles resulted in influence that worked both ways between artists young and old, and vice-versa. During the mid-1960s in New York, Los Angeles and elsewhere artists often crossed the lines between definitions and art styles. During that period – the mid 1960s through the 1970s advanced American art and contemporary art in general was at a crossroad, shattering in several directions. During the 1970s political movements and revolutionary changes in communication made these American styles international; as the art world itself became more and more international. American Lyrical Abstraction's
EuropeEurope is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an counterpart
Neo-expressionismNeo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
came to dominate the 1980s, and also developed as a response to American
Pop ArtPop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid 1950s in Britain and in the late 1950s in the United States. Pop art challenged tradition by asserting that an artist's use of the mass-produced visual commodities of popular culture is contiguous with the perspective of fine art...
and
MinimalismMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
and borrows heavily from American
Abstract ExpressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
.
Painters in America
This is a list of artists, whose work or a period or significant aspects of it, has been seen as lyrical abstraction, including those before the identification of the term or tendency in America in the 1960s.
- Arshile Gorky
Arshile Gorky was an Armenian-born American painter who had a seminal influence on Abstract Expressionism. As such, his works were often speculated to have been informed by the suffering and loss he experienced of the Armenian genocide.-Early life:...
(primarily abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
and surrealismSurrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
)
- James Brooks
James Brooks was an American muralist, abstract painter and winner of the Logan Medal of the Arts. Brooks was a friend of Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner on Eastern Long Island. In 1947 he married artist Charlotte Park...
(primarily abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
)
- Adolph Gottlieb
Adolph Gottlieb was an American abstract expressionist painter, sculptor and graphic artist.-Biography:Gottlieb was born in New York to Jewish parents. From 1920-1921 he studied at the Art Students League of New York, after which he traveled in France and Germany for a year...
(primarily abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
)
- Robert Motherwell
Robert Motherwell American painter, printmaker and editor. He was one of the youngest of the New York School , which also included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Willem de Kooning, and Philip Guston....
(primarily abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
)
- Philip Guston
Philip Guston was a notable painter and printmaker in the New York School, which included many of the Abstract expressionists, such as Jackson Pollock and Willem De Kooning...
(primarily abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
) and Neo-expressionismNeo-expressionism is a style of modern painting and sculpture that emerged in the late 1970s and dominated the art market until the mid-1980s...
- Kenzo Okada
Kenzo Okada was a Japanese-born American painter.According to Michelle Stuart, “when Okada came to the United States he was already a mature painter, well considered in his native Japan...
(primarily abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
)
- Joan Mitchell
Joan Mitchell was a "second generation" abstract expressionist painter. She was an essential member of the American Abstract expressionist movement, even though much of her career took place in France. Along with Lee Krasner, Grace Hartigan, and Helen Frankenthaler she was one of her era's few...
(and abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
)
- John Levee
John Levee is an American abstract expressionist painter who has worked in Paris since 1949. His father was M. C. Levee.-Background:...
(and abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
)
- Cleve Gray
Cleve Gray was known as an Abstract expressionist painter, who was also associated with Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction.-Biography:...
(and abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
)
- Helen Frankenthaler
Helen Frankenthaler is an American abstract expressionist painter. She is a major contributor to the history of postwar American painting. Having exhibited her work in six decades she has spanned several generations of abstract painters while continuing to produce vital and ever-changing new work...
(and abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
and color field painting)
- Ray Parker
Raymond Parker was born in 1922 and he died in 1990. He was known as an Abstract expressionist painter who also is associated with Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction...
(and abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
)
- Richard Diebenkorn
Richard Diebenkorn was a well-known 20th century American painter. His early work is associated with Abstract expressionism and the Bay Area Figurative Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. His later work were instrumental to his achievement of worldwide acclaim.-Biography:Richard Clifford Diebenkorn Jr...
(and abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
and color field painting)
- Morris Louis (and color field painting)
- Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland was an American abstract painter. He was one of the best-known American Color field painters, although in the 1950s he was thought of as an abstract expressionist and in the early 1960s he was thought of as a minimalist painter. Noland helped establish the Washington Color School...
(and color field painting)
- Jules Olitski
Jules Olitski was an American abstract painter, printmaker, and sculptor.-Early life:Olitski was born Jevel Demikovski in Snovsk, in the Russian SFSR , a few months after his father, a commissar, was executed by the Russian government...
(and abstract expressionismAbstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
and color field painting)
- Jack Bush
Jack Bush was a Canadian abstract expressionist painter, born in Toronto, Ontario in 1909 and he died there 24 January 1977...
(and Color field painting)
- Friedel Dzubas
Friedel Dzubas was a German-born American abstract painter.-Life and work:Friedel Dzubas studied art in his native land before fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939 and settling in New York City. In Manhattan during the early 1950s, he shared a studio with fellow abstract painter Helen Frankenthaler...
(and color field painting)
- Frank Stella
Frank Stella is an American painter and printmaker, significant within the art movements of minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.-Biography:...
( and minimalismMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
, Hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
, color field painting and sculptureSculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
)
- Brice Marden
Brice Marden , is an American artist, generally described as Minimalist, although his work defies specific categorization. He lives in New York and Eagles Mere.Marden is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery.-Life:...
(and minimalismMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
)
- Ronald Davis
Ronald Davis , born 1937, is an American painter whose work is associated with Geometric abstraction, Abstract Illusionism, Lyrical Abstraction, Hard-edge painting, Shaped canvas painting, Color field painting, and 3D Computer Graphics...
(and Hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
and Abstract IllusionismAbstract illusionism, a name coined by New York art gallery owner and author Louis K. Meisel, is an artistic movement that came into prominence in the United States during the mid 1970s...
)
- Larry Zox
Lawrence "Larry" Zox was an American painter and printmaker who is classified as an Abstract expressionist, Color Field painter and a Lyrical Abstractionist, although he did not readily use those categories for his work....
(and Color field painting and Hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
)
- Larry Poons
Lawrence Poons , better known as Larry Poons, is an abstract painter who was born in Tokyo, Japan. He studied from 1955 to 1957 at the New England Conservatory of Music, with the intent of becoming a professional musician...
(and Hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
and color field painting)
- Ronnie Landfield
Ronnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...
(and color field painting)
- David Simpson (and Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
)
- Edward Corbett (and abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
and color field painting)
- Sean Scully
Sean Scully is an Irish-born American painter and printmaker who has twice been named a Turner Prize nominee. His work is collected in major museums worldwide.-Life and work:...
(and Hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
)
- Sam Gilliam
Sam Gilliam is internationally recognized as one of America's foremost Color Field Painter and Lyrical Abstractionist artists....
- Walter Darby Bannard
Walter Darby Bannard , also known as Darby Bannard, is an American abstract painter.Bannard attended Phillips Exeter Academy and Princeton University, where he struck up a friendship and working relationship with Frank Stella, which continued after graduation and eventuated in the extreme...
(and minimalismMinimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
and color field painting)
- John Walker (painter)
John Walker is an English painter and printmaker.Walker studied in Birmingham. Some of his early work was inspired by abstract expressionism and post-painterly abstraction, and often combined apparently three-dimensional shapes with "flatter" elements...
- John Adams Griefen
- Joan Snyder
Joan Snyder is an American painter from New York. She is a MacArthur Fellow and a Guggenheim Fellow. Her paintings have been exhibited at several museums, including the de Saisset Museum and the Jewish Museum.-Painting styles:...
- Stephen Mueller
Stephen Mueller was an American painter whose color field and Lyrical Abstraction canvases took a turn towards pop. He earned his B.F.A. in painting from the University of Texas, Austin in 1969 and his M.F.A...
- Julian Hatton
Julian Burroughs Hatton III is an American landscape abstract artist from New York City whose paintings have appeared in galleries in the United States and France. The New York Times described his painting style as "vibrant, playful, semi-abstract landscapes" while New York Sun art critic John...
- Tom Holland
- Charles Arnoldi
Charles Arnoldi, also known as Chuck Arnoldi and as Charles Arthur Arnoldi is an American painter, sculptor and printmaker. He was born April 10, 1946 in Dayton, Ohio....
- Emily Mason
Emily Mason is an American abstract painter.Mason is known for her work in Color Field painting and Lyrical Abstraction. She was born and raised in New York City, where she continues to reside....
- Ed Moses
Ed Moses is an American artist based in the Los Angeles area.Born near Long Beach and educated in the mid-1950s at UCLA, Moses was one of the abstract artists with a one-man show at the legendary Los Angeles Ferus Gallery , in the cadre of fellow artists Wallace Berman, Billy Al Bengston, Robert...
- Irene Rice-Pereira
Irene Rice Pereira was an American abstract artist, known for her work in the Geometric abstraction, Abstract expressionist, and Lyrical Abstraction genres and her use of the principles of the Bauhaus school....
- Robert Natkin
Robert Natkin was an American born abstract painter whose work is associated with Abstract expressionism, Color field painting, and Lyrical Abstraction....
- Neil Williams
Neil Williams was an American painter. Williams was an abstract painter primarily known for his pioneering work with shaped canvases in the early 1960s. His paintings of the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s are associated with geometric abstraction, hard-edge painting, color field, and lyrical abstraction,...
(and Hard-edge paintingHard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
)
- David Budd (see nga links below)
- Peter Young (artist)
Peter Young, is an American painter who was born in Pittsburgh, Pa, January 2, 1940. He is primarily known for his abstract paintings that have been widely exhibited in the United States and in Europe since the 1960s. His work is associated with Minimal Art, Post-minimalism, and Lyrical Abstraction...
(see nga links below)
- Frank Bowling
Richard Sheridan Franklin Bowling [Frank Bowling] OBE is a Guyana born British artist and is widely considered to be one of the most distinguished artists to emerge from post-war British art schools...
- Al Loving
- Eugene J. Martin
Eugene James Martin was a prolific African American visual artist.-Art:Eugene J...
- Natvar Bhavsar
Natvar Bhavsar is an Indian artist, based in Soho, New York City, noted as an abstract expressionist and color field artist. Bhavsar's paintings appear in more than 800 private and public collections, including the collections of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New...
- Alan Shields
- John Hoyland
John Hoyland RA was a London-based British artist. He was one of the country's leading abstract painters.-Life:...
- Peter Reginato
Peter Reginato , is an American abstract sculptor.Reginato was born in Dallas, Texas, but grew up in the hills outside Oakland, California and he attended the San Francisco Art Institute. He began making abstract sculpture in 1965 and moved to New York City in 1966 to pursue his career as a sculptor...
(and sculptureSculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
)
- David Diao (and Hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
)
- Murray Reich
- Kenneth Showell
- Thornton Willis
- Joanna Pousette-Dart
- David Novros muralist (and minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
)
- Peter Bradley
- Edward Avedisian
Edward Avedisian was an American abstract painter who came into prominence during the 1960s. His work was initially associated with Color field painting and in the late 1960s with Lyrical Abstraction.-Early career:He studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston...
- Melissa Meyer
- Carol Sutton
- Frances Barth
- Carlos Villa
- Carol Haerer
- Phillip Wofford
- Stanley Boxer
Stanley Boxer was an American artist best known for thickly painted abstract works of art. He was also an accomplished sculptor and printmaker....
- Joyce Weinstein
- Ralph Humphrey
- William Pettet
- Edward Avedisian
Edward Avedisian was an American abstract painter who came into prominence during the 1960s. His work was initially associated with Color field painting and in the late 1960s with Lyrical Abstraction.-Early career:He studied art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston...
- Jack Whitten
Jack Whitten is an American abstract painter.- Biography :Whitten was born in Bessemer, Alabama, the son of a seamstress, twice widowed. His father, a coal-miner, died while Whitten was a child...
- Lee Lozano
Lee Lozano was an American painter, and visual and conceptual artist.-Early years:Born Lenore Knaster in Newark, New Jersey, she started to use the name "Lee" at the age of fourteen, often preferring to go by the simpler, if more enigmatic "E." She attended the University of Chicago as an...
- Gary Stephan
- Shirley Smith
- Ed Ruda
- David R. Prentice
David R. Prentice is an American artist.Prentice was born in Hartford, Connecticut and studied at the Art School of the University of Hartford from 1962 to 1964, after which he worked as a studio assistant to Jasper Johns, Robert Motherwell, Helen Frankenthaler, Alexander Liberman and Malcolm...
- Harvey Quaytman
- Lawrence Stafford
- Alan Cote
- Doug Ohlson
- Jake Berthot
- Robert Duran
- Nancy Graves
Nancy Graves was an American sculptor, painter, printmaker, and sometime-filmmaker known for her focus on natural phenomena like camels or maps of the moon...
(and sculptureSculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
)
- Joseph Drapell
- Carl Gliko
- Joe Haske
- Francine Tint
- Marilyn Kirsch
Marilyn Kirsch is an American artist, known for abstract and non-objective paintings often described as Lyrical Abstraction....
- Richard Saba
See also
- abstract expressionism
Abstract expressionism was an American post–World War II art movement. It was the first specifically American movement to achieve worldwide influence and put New York City at the center of the western art world, a role formerly filled by Paris...
- color field painting
- hard-edge painting
Hard-edge painting is painting in which abrupt transitions are found between color areas. Color areas are often of one unvarying color. The Hard-edge painting style is related to Geometric abstraction, Op Art, Post-painterly Abstraction, and Color Field painting.-History of the term:The term was...
- Post-painterly abstraction
Post-painterly abstraction is a term created by art critic Clement Greenberg as the title for an exhibit he curated for the Los Angeles County Museum of Art in 1964, which subsequently travelled to the Walker Art Center and the Art Gallery of Toronto....
- Tachisme
Tachisme is a French style of abstract painting popular in the 1940s and 1950s. It is often considered to be the European equivalent to abstract expressionism...
- COBRA (avant-garde movement)
COBRA was a European avant-garde movement active from 1948 to 1951. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home cities: Copenhagen , Brussels , Amsterdam .-History:...
- Formalism (art)
In art theory, formalism is the concept that a work's artistic value is entirely determined by its form--the way it is made, its purely visual aspects, and its medium. Formalism emphasizes compositional elements such as color, line, shape and texture rather than realism, context, and content...
- Western painting
The history of Western painting represents a continuous, though disrupted, tradition from antiquity. Until the mid-19th century it was primarily concerned with representational and Classical modes of production, after which time more modern, abstract and conceptual forms gained favor.Developments...
- History of painting
The history of painting reaches back in time to artifacts from pre-historic humans, and spans all cultures. It represents a continuous, though periodically disrupted tradition from Antiquity. Across cultures, and spanning continents and millennia, the history of painting is an ongoing river of...
Sources
- Landfield, Ronnie, In The Late Sixties, 1993–95, and other writings – various published and unpublished essays, reviews, lectures, statements and brief descriptives at http://www.abstract-art.com.
- Robbins, Daniel. Larry Poons: Creation of the Complex Surface, Exhibition Catalogue, Salander/O'Reilly Galleries, pp. 9–19, 1990.
- Zinsser, John. Larry Poons, an interview reprinted from Journal of Contemporary Art, Fall/Winter 1989, vol.2.2 pp. 28–38. Exhibition Catalogue, Salander/O'Reilly Galleries, pp. 20–24, 1990.
- Peter Schjeldahl
Peter Schjeldahl, , is an American art critic, poet, and educator.Schjeldahl was born in Fargo, North Dakota. He grew up in small towns throughout Minnesota, and attended Carleton College and The New School...
. New Abstract Painting: A Variety of Feelings, Exhibition review, "Continuing Abstraction ", The Whitney Downtown Branch, 55 Water St. NYC. The New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, October 13, 1974.
- Carmean, E.A. Toward Color and Field, Exhibition Catalogue, Houston Museum of Fine Arts, 1971.
- Henning, Edward B. Color & Field, Art International May 1971: 46–50.
- Tucker, Marcia. The Structure of Color, New York: Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, NYC, 1971.
- Ratcliff, Carter. Painterly vs. Painted, Art News Annual XXXVII, Thomas B. Hess, and John Ashberry, eds.1971, pp..129–147.
- Prokopoff, Stephen. Two Generations of Color Painting, Exhibition Catalogue, Philadelphia Institute of Contemporary Art, 1971.
- Lyrical Abstraction, Exhibition Catalogue, Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
, NYC, 1971.
- Sharp, Willoughby. Points of View, A taped conversation with four painters," Ronnie Landfield
Ronnie Landfield is an American abstract painter. During his early career from the mid-1960s through the 1970s his paintings were associated with Lyrical Abstraction, , and he was represented by the David Whitney Gallery and the André Emmerich Gallery.Landfield is...
, Brice MardenBrice Marden , is an American artist, generally described as Minimalist, although his work defies specific categorization. He lives in New York and Eagles Mere.Marden is represented by the Matthew Marks Gallery.-Life:...
, Larry Poons and John Walker (painter)John Walker is an English painter and printmaker.Walker studied in Birmingham. Some of his early work was inspired by abstract expressionism and post-painterly abstraction, and often combined apparently three-dimensional shapes with "flatter" elements...
, Arts, v. 45, n.3. December 1970, pp. 41–.
- Lyrical Abstraction, Exhibition Catalogue, the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Conn. 1970.
- Domingo, Willis. Color Abstractionism: A Survey of Recent American Painting, Arts, v. 45.n.3, December 1970, pp. 34–40.
- Channin, Richard. New Directions in Painterly Abstraction, Art International, Sept. 1970; pp. 62–64.
- Davis, Douglas. The New Color Painters, Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
4 May 1970: pp. 84–85.
- Ashton, Dore. Young Abstract Painters: Right On! Arts v. 44, n. 4, February, 1970, pp. 31–35.
- Aldrich, Larry. Young Lyrical Painters, Art in America
Art in America is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It is designed for collectors, artists, dealers, art professionals and other...
, v.57, n6, November–December 1969, pp. 104–113.
- Ratcliff, Carter. The New Informalists, Art News, v. 68, n. 8, December 1969, p. 72.
- Davis, Douglas M. This Is the Loose-Paint Generation, The National Observer 4 Aug. 1969: p. 20
- Martin, Ann Ray, and Howard Junker. The New Art: It's Way, Way Out, Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
29 July 1968: pp. 3,55–63.
External links